Waiting For Respawn
by Dr. von Stab
Summary: Ever wonder where the classes go while waiting for Respawn?  After all, in a world of technicalities, they are dead in that time period.  Attempted to be dark and unsettling.


**This is the first piece of anything that i have ever uploaded onto the internet in my life. The irony is still drilling a hole into the back of my skull as I type. Don't be merciful with the reviews. In fact don't review at all unless you have something mean to say about it. Make something up if you have to even but, tell me first, k?  
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**Waiting For Respawn**

He had woken up in the forest. He always did. The boy would always wake up in the same dark forest at times like these. Of course any concepts of the meaning of time were completely useless at, well… at times like these.

The sounds of the forest echoed all around the boy as he blinked his eyes in the murky half light that managed to saunter down through the black leaves above. Never enough light to illuminate the surroundings, of course, but just enough to give some idea of just how dark it really was down here amongst the black trees, their huge trunks climbing into the void above.

And it was never the darkness itself that unnerved the boy. There were… things… lurking in the dark, waiting for him to wander off the path. Always there were things, dark and secret things, in the shadows. They watched the boy, and he knew it.'

He was in his old play outfit, but there was no playing to be done here. In this forest of black and gray the boy could only wander on down the path. He would never reach the end, but he had to tread onward, through the massive black trees that surrounded him.

Someone would scream. Someone would be crying. There would be shapes, strange shapes bent at painful angles, always just barely out of sight of the little boy as he made his way along the forest path. On the other side of a creek, blackened with soot and… bodies… a tall, thin man would stand and watch the boy walk by.

Often, the boy would recognize something off in the darkness that lay off the path. In a murky puddle he saw a waterlogged bed with a woman's swollen body lying on top of it. In another puddle he saw a man, floating face down and surrounded by empty bottles. The surface rippled, once or twice. Twisted up in the roots of a tree he would see an old car, a little girl pinned between its grill and the trunk. Her face is familiar but the boy cannot look at the expression for too long, even though he has seen it many times and will see it many more.

Animal sounds come out of the dark on either side. The boy listens as something small whimpers. The sound of rustling grass. Something scrabbling up in the branches. He is not alone here. Many others walk the same path, but his circumstances are special

And always, always there was the following darkness. It was why he could never turn back. Something moved in the shadows behind him, something hungry, something patient. It was slow, but it never stopped following. Sometimes it made weeping noises. Sometimes it asked him to come and play with it. He would remain silent and continue onwards.

Even the other children that littered either side of the path, strung from the trees on ropes wound around their necks, would insist he go back. But he had to keep going forward. If the boy could not escape whatever it was, he would elude it for as long as possible.

It was always like waking up from a bad dream, and relief flooded over him as the welcome sensations of the gleaming white room filled him. He walks forward and the automatic glass sliding doors open up for him, leading into a room with lockers along one wall and a medical supply cabinet along the other. His teammates need him, and this is made apparent as a call is made.

"MEDIC!" the Heavy bellowed. "Come along Doktor! Is team time!" he added as he turned and rushed out through the door of Respawn and onto the battlements of RED's 2Fort base.

The Medic, glad to be back in the fight, hauled out his Medigun and followed the large Russian out into the fray. "_Jawohl_!"

Of all the mercenaries, he was the one who had most to fear going across the threshold, and the Respawn room would not always be there.


End file.
